I thought initially this was something like Arms race because of the split in the map, but I like the idea nonetheless!

My question is how exactly this would work for multiplayers/team games etc?

The bombardments, decay & auto-deploys all give intriguing options (if I'm right, you don't actually have to take the resources +2 auto-deploy, to win?)Also, apparently you can never win until you put a significant stack on the bombard spot? otherwise the opponent can tap you every turn?

I also like that both players have access to the Spikes, it reminds me of the world cup maps where you can fight over the Finals to meet the win condition.Can't you however make that the WC alone, rather than having to hold the whole line at the same time? You need to go through the line to reach it anyway, so you have done the effort, but there's no need to always hold it afterwords, which would allow something like the killer neutrals that nole mentioned (and it'd be nice to add another feature which has it's own strategic value)

And it is feasible compared to RL where you would need maintenance on a track after you've built it which causes it to revert to neutral?

Leehar wrote:I thought initially this was something like Arms race because of the split in the map, but I like the idea nonetheless! My question is how exactly this would work for multiplayers/team games etc?

Map title at top of thread and on front page: 1v1.Therefore multiplayers and team games cannot play this map.Specific style of map. please note.

The bombardments, decay & auto-deploys all give intriguing options (if I'm right, you don't actually have to take the resources +2 auto-deploy, to win?)

That's correct, you don't have to take them, but they would be useful for forts of resources.

Also, apparently you can never win until you put a significant stack on the bombard spot? otherwise the opponent can tap you every turn?

That could be one strategy.

I also like that both players have access to the Spikes, it reminds me of the world cup maps where you can fight over the Finals to meet the win condition.Can't you however make that the WC alone, rather than having to hold the whole line at the same time? You need to go through the line to reach it anyway, so you have done the effort, but there's no need to always hold it afterwords, which would allow something like the killer neutrals that nole mentioned (and it'd be nice to add another feature which has it's own strategic value)

Yes, you could do as u mentioned, but this is based on historic facts, and those were that both railroad companies built and held their respective lines, and there were spikes driven at the end to signify the finality of it. Given this is a 1v1 game the objective is that you hold al your own line and obtain and hold all the spikes for your side for one turn.

And it is feasible compared to RL where you would need maintenance on a track after you've built it which causes it to revert to neutral?

Looking good. I have a feeling that the bottom player has the advantage at this point, but I'm sure that is something that will be looked closely at in the future.

Another way to simulate the "bad" events happening along the line like Indian attacks, would be to give the opponent a starting position on the opposite side of the map that can be used for bombardment purposes only. In other words, that territory is useless except to bombard a certain point (or points) on the opponent's line.

Looking good. I have a feeling that the bottom player has the advantage at this point, but I'm sure that is something that will be looked closely at in the future.

Yep.

Another way to simulate the "bad" events happening along the line like Indian attacks, would be to give the opponent a starting position on the opposite side of the map that can be used for bombardment purposes only. In other words, that territory is useless except to bombard a certain point (or points) on the opponent's line.

giving a starting postion on opposite side of the map is not really keeping with historical events, so i'de prefer not to go there

As a dedicated player of CC and with most of that dedication going to random map games I found myself looking into the newer maps and personally this one scares me. For one thing, I play adj/nuke/trench a lot. This map would be put to the ultimate test under these circumstances and okay I don't see why it shouldn't give me good percentages with my knowledge of movements and my play-making ability. However, I'm worried about the early carding chances, and also the fact that I cannot possibly stop my opponent from winning if his luck is too strong in the early rounds (this would be especially true with say flat rate games).

Now, if you are to make a player like me happy about a map of this context, I would want more chances to bombard (the 1 is a slight improvement from earlier versions), but also chances to cross over (maybe through 4 neutrals 3-2-2-3 or something) and mess with my opponents winning chances... a one-line-of-attack into the finish line seems harshly dependent on luck as well.. even though I doubt a game ends so even as that.

I think FreeFalling brings up some good points, cairns. I know you were going for a "simple" map here, and we can all appreciate it that from , at this point it's pretty much a race to the center, best dice wins.

After a little research (and a search of this topic so unless I missed it it hasn't been brought up) I found out that "Promontory Summit" is indeed the correct name for where this historic event took place, which was a surprise to me. I'm from 4 generations of railroad men, and I'd always heard it referred to as "Promontory Point". Cool to learn something new and all, but even if it's technically incorrect I still think "Promontory Point" sounds better than "Promontory Summit" Just curious why you decided to go with 'summit' cairns--I see you originally had it is 'point'. Anyway looking forward to being able to play this one regardless of it's name!

Silvanus wrote:perch is a North Korean agent to infiltrate south Korean girls

perchorin wrote:After a little research (and a search of this topic so unless I missed it it hasn't been brought up) I found out that "Promontory Summit" is indeed the correct name for where this historic event took place, which was a surprise to me. I'm from 4 generations of railroad men, and I'd always heard it referred to as "Promontory Point". Cool to learn something new and all, but even if it's technically incorrect I still think "Promontory Point" sounds better than "Promontory Summit" Just curious why you decided to go with 'summit' cairns--I see you originally had it is 'point'. Anyway looking forward to being able to play this one regardless of it's name!

perchorin, thanks for popping in...yes i too thought it to be "point", but research advise4d differently so i changed it to "Summit".I believe "point" was actually a region south of Summit on the Great Salt lake.

nolefan5311 wrote:I think FreeFalling brings up some good points, cairns. I know you were going for a "simple" map here, and we can all appreciate it that from , at this point it's pretty much a race to the center, best dice wins.

And that's why i wanted to mix it up a little with the neutrals, which can still be done, but it has to be done fairly.

Per mapmakers request. If the mapmaker wants to continue with the map, then one of the Cartography Assistants will be able to help put the thread back into the Foundry system, after an update has been made.

It is nice to see this map back. But I do not understand (and agreed) with last changes.Why there are only one side on the each side which could be bombarded? What is the idea about areas with -1? Once player take it and move forward there is no any important role of these. Maybe a little in trench gamesq or with adjacent reinforcement. But for duel between two players they are not.I think that version with more bombarded areas was better, maybe you could do one of these -1 regions bombarded on each side?

Oneyed wrote:It is nice to see this map back. But I do not understand (and agreed) with last changes.Why there are only one side on the each side which could be bombarded? What is the idea about areas with -1? Once player take it and move forward there is no any important role of these. Maybe a little in trench gamesq or with adjacent reinforcement. But for duel between two players they are not.I think that version with more bombarded areas was better, maybe you could do one of these -1 regions bombarded on each side?

Oneyed

Did you read any of the back discussion on how the map arrived at this stage?There are 12 pages of it!

Seems to me that bottom person still has a fairly strong advantage that will be very decisive in a trench game. The reason is that the bottom player has more ability to grab autodeploy bonuses before they reach their bridge. At that point, they can sit back and bombard and use any extra troops to build up their bonus.

I love the non-symmetrical nature of this map, and I think you should keep it. But I think the way it is now needs work. You'd have to somehow make it easier for the person on the top to reach their bridge with enough troops to pass through BUT without making it too easy.

Playing out a trench game in my mind here. I will even give the top player the first turn and see if he's still at a disadvantage. All the rolls are calculated based on the minimum number of troops that will remain after an attack 50% of the time. Though the early rolls may require rolling less than a 4v3, almost all of the later rolls do not, so (except for the early rounds) basically figure that on average you lose 1 troop taking 2 neutrals and 2 troops taking 3 neutrals.

The game looks identical for the first two rounds because both are going through the same amount of neutrals. Any variation is caused by the dice. This changes in the next round where green has to go through a 3 on Kearney and red only has to deal with the 2 on Colfax. However, this is not going to be enough to slow green down, IMO. Notice that the negative autodeploys on each player's second territ don't matter because they only left 1 there. For this reason those autodeploys are put in brackets from here on out.

Notice that the forts start to look different for both players here. Green (the bottom player) is not forting out of his base because he knows he's going to have to fort back into it for the bombing. At this point that shouldn't affect whether or not he can keep taking territs.

Now that you're getting the hang of the autodeploys and deploys (deploys go farthest territ forward, I'm going to skip them for a while. Now I'll just show the "board" as it would look after the deploys and autos have been taken into account.

In Round 8 things get a little bit interesting. Red will take Wadsworth putting him ready to take Humboldt Bridge if the dice and green allow it in Round 9. However, green instead of forting forward will simply fort backward to make sure that he has enough troops to bomb anything that might come into Humboldt Bridge. In the meantime, he can use any additional troops to keep securing bonuses--an option not open to red.

Now red is at the verge of Humboldt Bridge. But here's what it looks like if he attacks. Theoretically, red is outdeploying green by 1 autodeploy (because he took Truckee a +1 when green had to take Julesberg), and he has the troop advantage, but I don't think that's going to be enough here.

R9r: r3,r1,r7,r3,r6,r1,r4,r3,r2,r41 --> r3,r1,r7,r3,r6,r1,r4,r3,r2,r1,r38 --> r3,r1,r1,r3,r6,r1,r4,r3,r2,r1,r44 (fort)R9g: g38,g1,g7,g5,g3,g1,g4,g1,g2,g2 --> g4,g1,g7,g5,g3,g1,g4,g1,g2,g2 (red has been bombed off of Humboldt) --> g10,g1,g1,g5,g3,g1,g4,g1,g2,g2 (green forts in for a little bit to make sure he can always take Humboldt)

From there, the game progresses with red never being able to take Humboldt as long as green keeps enough troops on Omaha to counteract this. Gradually, green will gain the advantage and be able to keep striking out into Cheyenne Social Club, at which point he will have the deploy advantage and the troop advantage.

You can already see that green is slowly gaining an advantage here and will be able to continue to bomb letting Cheyenne (his last listed territ--currently a g3) build up until he can take Social Club.

So, what does this mean for the map? It means that at least as far as the bridge the game is weighted in favor of Green (the bottom guy) in a trench game. That's even if you give red the first turn. If green has the first turn the advantage is even more marked. The good news is that the advantage isn't huge. In a perfect world, red should have an advantage going first (because there's no easy way to eliminate the first turn advantage). In order to give red such an advantage, he would just have to reach the bridge with a few more troops ... up to you how you create those extra troops. One idea might be to give red a +1 resource in Reno or Wadsworth, but someone would have to check if that's going too far. That would encourage red to sit and wait near the bridge for a little bit longer.

Counterarguments and responses:

Argument: Well, what if red doesn't send his troops out to be bombed in those later rounds?Response: I think the result is still the same. green can decide to take Social Club and keep moving forward, which puts him at a deploy advantage even though red went first. If green went first, he's already got this advantage and that will be further aggravated by red waiting around on Wadsworth

Argument: Well you have X attackers and Y defenders and your result is X' and Y'. That doesn't happen.Response: First off, if you're just saying that dice vary, I agree with you. Nothing can be done about that, but if you put two people with even dice (in this case the "expected dice"), then you should come out about equal (except for the first turn advantage).

If you are making a more nuanced argument about the particular approach I used, then ... I'm sure there are more considered ways to do the dice odds. However, I don't think they will change much. I took the Battle Odds calculations and took how many troops a person could expect to lose rounded up to the nearest whole number. If you want to figure out a way of calculating odds of fractional troops, be my guest. But there could be a critical error here if I underestimated green's losses or overestimated red's. However, I believe that I may have done the opposite if anything.

Overall, once each player has their second and third territs (e.g. Newcastle and Gov't Grants for red), green has to go through 2,3,3,3,3,2,2 and red must go through 2,2,2,3,2,2,2. That means that green must hit a total of 3 more 3's while red hits corresponding 2s. The penalty for this in my calculations is that green loses 3 more troops. In reality, I think the overall advantage is closer to between 2 and 2.5. (I tested this by running Battle Odds of an attacking stack of 40 through territs of those values.)

Argument: The "unfairness" balances out once you get past the bridge.Response: Maybe. But that doesn't change the analysis for trench games. You'd have to do a whole different analysis for regular games, and I'm not up for it after this long message. The point here, is that the advantage in TRENCH games could be decisive. Even to the point of giving the bottom player the advantage when he starts 2nd.

If you want to do the analysis for non-trench games be my guest. In such an analysis, you would calculate how far in each turn a player could be expected to "reach" (i.e. how far they get 50% or more of the time). Then you would look at how many troops they have left and use that number as the basis for the next turn. Considering that there are limited choices that a player can make along his path, the analysis wouldn't be terribly difficult. (For example, players will probably grab the bonuses along the way. Players will probably not take the decay territs unless they can take the next one. Players will probably not reserve troops to bomb the bridges because players will probably not leave stacks there. &cetera.)

Argument: This should just go back to the Recycle Bin.Response: You bite your tongue! I'm very happy to see that this is being worked on again.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^agentcom what deliberations!..and no, it's not going back to the recycled bin thank-you, thank-you, thank-you!thank-you for presentation in an understandable manner...you took a lot of work and wrote it so easily.

Overall, once each player has their second and third territs (e.g. Newcastle and Gov't Grants for red), green has to go through 2,3,3,3,3,2,2 and red must go through 2,2,2,3,2,2,2. That means that green must hit a total of 3 more 3's while red hits corresponding 2s. The penalty for this in my calculations is that green loses 3 more troops. In reality, I think the overall advantage is closer to between 2 and 2.5. (I tested this by running Battle Odds of an attacking stack of 40 through territs of those values.)

so from what i read, this sequencing above needs to be better balanced.

i will have a look at this later this week when i have time to do similar analysis.

FreeFalling123 wrote:As a dedicated player of CC and with most of that dedication going to random map games I found myself looking into the newer maps and personally this one scares me. For one thing, I play adj/nuke/trench a lot. This map would be put to the ultimate test under these circumstances and okay I don't see why it shouldn't give me good percentages with my knowledge of movements and my play-making ability. However, I'm worried about the early carding chances, and also the fact that I cannot possibly stop my opponent from winning if his luck is too strong in the early rounds (this would be especially true with say flat rate games).

Now, if you are to make a player like me happy about a map of this context, I would want more chances to bombard (the 1 is a slight improvement from earlier versions), but also chances to cross over (maybe through 4 neutrals 3-2-2-3 or something) and mess with my opponents winning chances... a one-line-of-attack into the finish line seems harshly dependent on luck as well.. even though I doubt a game ends so even as that.

These are just a couple quick thoughts about the map. Hope it helps.

I understand FreeFalling123. I'll rethink the opportunity for bombardments.What do you mean "chances to cross over"? Are you refering this to the end of the game?

FreeFalling123 wrote:As a dedicated player of CC and with most of that dedication going to random map games I found myself looking into the newer maps and personally this one scares me. For one thing, I play adj/nuke/trench a lot. This map would be put to the ultimate test under these circumstances and okay I don't see why it shouldn't give me good percentages with my knowledge of movements and my play-making ability. However, I'm worried about the early carding chances, and also the fact that I cannot possibly stop my opponent from winning if his luck is too strong in the early rounds (this would be especially true with say flat rate games).

Now, if you are to make a player like me happy about a map of this context, I would want more chances to bombard (the 1 is a slight improvement from earlier versions), but also chances to cross over (maybe through 4 neutrals 3-2-2-3 or something) and mess with my opponents winning chances... a one-line-of-attack into the finish line seems harshly dependent on luck as well.. even though I doubt a game ends so even as that.

These are just a couple quick thoughts about the map. Hope it helps.

I understand FreeFalling123. I'll rethink the opportunity for bombardments.What do you mean "chances to cross over"? Are you refering this to the end of the game?

If you are refering this to the "Spikes" it says under the 2nd Gold Spike > All Spikes can assualt each otherwhich means to me that there is opportunity to mess with your opponents armies in that section, given that it also says"Assaults from each Promontory Summit is one-way to the Gold & Silver Spikes" so that means each spike can be assaulted from each Promorntory Summit position.

Also - even before it is a race to the center of the map for the gold and silver spikes .....Each player from their STARTING POINT can bombard the bridge of the enemy on the other side - So if you split your forces and ensure you leave enough on your starting point - you can really hold a player back at their bridges... Especially if your playing a trench game...

Aleena wrote:Also - even before it is a race to the center of the map for the gold and silver spikes .....Each player from their STARTING POINT can bombard the bridge of the enemy on the other side - So if you split your forces and ensure you leave enough on your starting point - you can really hold a player back at their bridges... Especially if your playing a trench game...

It is - but others claim this map has little to no strategy - it's more just a luck of the die and who ever makes it to the center first... I'm trying to illustrate the fine tuned strategic elements that this game has and others seem to be missing....